Services purchased by the Ministry of Education and Culture will be used to enhance the operating conditions for Finnish research and education

The Ministry of Education and Culture and CSC signed an annual agreement, under which CSC will maintain, provide and develop services to meet the needs of research, education, culture and public administration on an annual basis. The agreement specifies five service packages, which the Department for Higher Education and Science Policy and General Upper Secondary Education is purchasing from CSC in 2019.

At the beginning of the year, the Department for Higher Education and Science Policy changed its name to the Department for Higher Education, Science Policy and General Upper Secondary Education, when matters pertaining to general upper secondary education were placed within the purview of the Department.

The interoperable services being purchased from CSC will be used to promote the conditions for high-quality research and teaching in Finland. The agreement covers a total of approximately 70 services, which are primarily free of charge.

 


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The services are free of charge to all higher education institutions administered by the Ministry of Education and Culture for use in research and education in order to supplement the in-house offering of each higher education institution. In addition to this, the services can now be used for academic purposes free of charge by research institutions administered by other ministries.

– Scientific breakthroughs require high-performance computing, high-speed data networks, free-flowing information streams and a functional infrastructure. Research conducted using supercomputers is a requirement for such things as the development of artificial intelligence. But, highly sophisticated hardware can't do everything on its own – expert support is essential to get the most out of the hardware, explains Pekka Lehtovuori, Director of Computing Services for Research at CSC.

The use of the services set out in the agreement will provide a basis for full-scale use of CSC's high-performance computing environment, which will be updated between 2017 and 2021 as part of the data management and computing development program. The system includes, for example, a highly advanced partition for use in artificial intelligence research. Increasing the level of expertise also ensures the international competitiveness of Finnish research cooperation in fields of data and computing driven research.

– The Ministry of Education and Culture offers the research community in higher education and research institutions services that promote cooperation and competitiveness. The effective use of the renewed services requires that both CSC and higher education and research institutions supplement their expertise, says Erja Heikkinen Director of the Division for Science Policy at the Ministry of Education and Culture.


The Ministry of Education and Culture is purchasing the following service packages from CSC in 2019:

  • Higher education and research information network Funet
  • Information management and architecture services for higher education institutions
  • Analytics and data infrastructure services for the Ministry of Education and Culture
  • Data lifecycle management services
  • The data management and computing development program as well as a service package for developing related expertise (DL2021)

The content of the service packages and their objectives are set out in the agreement. The agreement is available on CSC's Finnish Internet site:

Links:
More detailed presentation on the CSC website
Agreement

Inquiries:
Juha Haataja Counsellor of Education, Ministry of Education and Culture juha.haataja(at)minedu.fi

Klaus Lindberg, Director, CSC – IT Center for Science
klaus.lindberg(at)csc.fi